A morning or two after our arrival, we accompanied Mr. Thurburn over the field of battle of the 21st of March, 1801, when the English made good their footing in Egypt. The plain where the battle was fought has neither ditch nor wall, nor indeed anything to impede the movements of horse or foot; and the trial between the contending armies must have been that of courage more than skill. The entrenchments, which the French threw up after the battle, and where they made a stand of some weeks, were still visible.
But the achievements of the French in Egypt, to be candid, seem to have been a series of brilliant victories, not the least of which was the last defeat of the Turks, when, under the conduct of the grand vizir, they were routed on the same ground where the English afterwards beat them.
The native Christians of Egypt (I am disposed to believe) did not like the French as masters so well as the Turks. In one respect, they made a comparison between the two nations, which, from the proverbial venality of a Turkish cadi, was truly laughable. They contrasted the promptitude and celerity in the administration of justice by the Turks with the dilatoriness and endless forms of the French courts. For example, they said, a Turkish governor sends for a man accused of a crime, and puts him face to face with his accusers. Both parties are heard, and either the accused man is acquitted, or forthwith he is bastinadoed or beheaded, and there is an end of the matter; or he is imprisoned, and told that ten, fifteen, a hundred, or one thousand purses are required of him. The prisoner sets his friends to work, who contrive a secret interview with those who are supposed to have most influence with the governor. To one they will say, “There are a thousand piasters for you; speak a good word for our friend.” If there be some lady who is thought to have captivated the governor, she receives from an unknown hand a diamond ring, and is required to have pity on a distressed family. In this way the governor is worried right and left: he relents: half the fine, or perhaps all of it, is remitted, and the prisoner is set at liberty. But with the Europeans, they say, a suit is never ended: and how should it, when it is the interest of so many persons, notaries, procureurs, and advocates, to perpetuate it?
Our time, owing to the kindness and hospitality of Colonel Misset, passed very agreeably. The colonel, whose long residence in these parts had made him a connoisseur in the Turkish dress, was much amused with our costumes: and he might be with reason, for, as I have said above, they were very ill assorted.
What Lady Hester’s opinion of Alexandria was may be shown from a letter she wrote about this time to one of her correspondents:—
Lady Hester Stanhope to ——
Alexandria, February 12, 1812.
My dear ——,
I have not time to write a long letter, as we leave this place to-morrow for Cairo.
Colonel Misset has been very kind to us, but the person to whom we owe the most obligations is Captain Hope: nothing can have equalled his attention and good nature. What we should have done without him I know not; perhaps he will be the bearer of this, and he will then give you a full account of us and of our intentions.